It's something to do with drawing to another target image. I had a similar problem on Monday drawing to another bitmap (other than bitmap 0).
If you do this it works as expected:
// init system stuff
sync on
sync rate 60
// init d3d stuff
d3d_init
d3d_font 1,"arial",96,0,0,0
// init image kit stuff
ik create render target 1,400,200
set draw target 2,1
d3d_startText
for y=-5 to 5
for x=-5 to 5
d3d_text 1,10+x,10+y,0,"Example",rgb(255,128,0)
next x
next y
d3d_endText
set draw target 0,0
// init the sprite
sprite 1,0,0,1
hide sprite 1
// main loop
do
`paste sprite 1,0,0
d3d_startText
for y=-5 to 5
for x=-5 to 5
d3d_text 1,10+x,10+y,0,"Example",rgb(255,128,0)
next x
next y
d3d_endText
text 0,0,"This should be solid orange"
paste image 1,0,200 : ` using the transparency flag causes the same problem as above
text 0,200,"More like this, but with transparency as well"
sync
loop
Maybe you need to init d3d after swapping to the other image...
...no that didn't work...
I'll think on it.
EDIT: This works using normal text commands. My guess is it's a problem in the dll...
// init system stuff
sync on
sync rate 60
// init image kit stuff
ik create render target 1,400,200
set draw target 2,1
// init d3d stuff
d3d_init
d3d_font 1,"arial",96,0,0,0
set text font "arial"
set text size 96
d3d_startText
ink rgb(255,128,0)
for y=-5 to 5
for x=-5 to 5
text 10+x,10+y,"Example"
next x
next y
d3d_endText
set draw target 0,0
// init the sprite
sprite 1,0,0,1
hide sprite 1
set text size 12
// main loop
do
paste sprite 1,0,0
text 0,0,"This should be solid orange"
paste image 1,0,200 : ` using the transparency flag causes the same problem as above
text 0,200,"More like this, but with transparency as well"
sync
loop
